[quote=""T3h Kaiser @ also known as PrettyPinkPwny""]I've actually had what I feel is a pretty interesting concept for a new Star Fox game brewing in my head for quite awhile. Unfortunately, it borrows heavily from several games that are very much not Star Fox. Bear with me, though (and by "bear", I mean with fur and claws and general awesomeness).

Okay, so, ever played Mass Effect? Basically the single most greatest sci-fi cinematic experience of our time? Yeah, picture that, but replace the settings and characters with everything from Star Fox.

Think of the cinematicness of Mass Effect; that crap took itself seriously... and for good reason. This video pretty much explains what I mean. Now imagine that with Star Fox characters and the setting. Pretty awesome, am I right? Star Fox could easily pull off something big. Something epic. It has probably the best potential out of any Nintendo franchise to pull this off (No, I didn't forget about LoZ) and yet it's all untapped potential. It has the characters and the potential for grand action. Shigeru Miyamoto even said that his personal main focus on the series was to develop characters that would make the player want to see the end of the story; why not fully develop these characters, and use them to their full potential?

Now, for the characters, I'm thinking the main character should be made by the player. A new Star Fox character, custom designed in a player creation system. That character could be male or female, and probably could be any one of the big series species (Fox, Wolf, Cat, Bird, Rabbit, Frog, Ape). There could be some simple dialogue trees that the player could go through during cutscenes, for a bit of roleplaying; maybe not on the same scale as a BioWare game, but something that could make the main character "belong" to the player. The player would be able to help Fox recruit more members of Star Fox - most old, maybe a few new - due to some big crisis. Maybe some epic war required Star Fox to boost it's members or something. Each mission the player would pick three pilots out of his team to help him; instead of just sticking with the original guys every mission. The rest could hang out in the Great Fox. Kind of RPG-ish, in a sense.

Imagine being able to recruit guys like Katt, Bill, Dash Bowman to join the Star Fox crew. Maybe Star Wolf could join your "party". It would also prove to be a fun way of bringing back Miyu the Lynx and Fay the Dog of Star Fox 2. XD

The Great Fox could be upgradeable, and Arwings could be customizable. Just for fun. There could be onfoot missions, I guess, but imagine Gears of War. The kind of "over the shoulder" third person shooter style, with the ability to go into first person mode by holding a button. That would make the entire thing more bearable, and easier to aim. In between missions, I picture being able to go between planets, and chilling in cities and stuff. Maybe going through cities could get you sidequests, or you could buy stuff. Also between missions, I can see the main character being able to hang out in the Great Fox and talking to the team, to get to know them better and stuff; imagine having a drink and reminiscing with Falco, or helping Slippy prepare his wedding (since, unfortunately, he is engaged according to the canon; that's so wrong). And, of course, the missions could be co-op; I've always felt the best addition they could add to the series is co-op during the story mode.

So basically, it would retain the classic on-rails shooter gameplay, but with improvements such as team and Arwing customization, and co-op. The on-foot missions would be improved with all around better gameplay; the Gears of War style aiming would just be perfect. And the general customization, party management and all around fleshed outness would just make it seem like a legitimate game again. Star Fox 64's simplicity worked because of the time it was made; a simple on-rail shooter can't succeed anymore, because it will either be of low quality, or just be compared with SF64.

Forgive me if all of this doesn't make any sense and it's worded poorly; it's very late, but I couldn't sleep and decided to wreak havoc on this thread with the ideas that I have long pondered. This is the first time I've actually typed all of this out.

tl;dr = Star Fox could go in a really badass direction if Nintendo just took some risks.[/quote]

I think that Starfox: Assault was just a dainty little step into a pool of new greatness for the Starfox series. It definately felt the most cinnematic of the Starfox games, with everything just generally being darker. Sure, a few missions (*coughAparoidCitycough*) were horrendous due to ground controls and just...er...generally being very bad. However, it was really much more character-oriented and had an overall better story than "lolz, mercenary group guyz. Andross gets pwned, Falco's pwnsome, we do barrel rolls". Sure, Starfox: Command tried to pull of quite a nice story, but...it just felt kinda empty. Less cinnematic and impressive than Peppy driving the Great Fox straight into an alien homeworld, or Pigma's death.

Your idea with the characters is absolutely brilliant. Of course, if Sakurai makes a fourth Smash Bros., they might have to find a character completely consistant with every storyline, like Pokemon Trainer. Customization just overall would make Starfox look much better as a series. Especially in Wi-fi...imagine two differently decked-out battleships with eight differently-styled arwings battling it out. It could easily be the most exhilerating online experience Nintendo could offer...well, maybe a little less than the War of 1000 Pikmin, but still...

I'd really only go for the FPS element if Wi-fi were added, and it wasn't broken like the two-player in Assault. Really, it was just "get in the Landmaster, lolz, I winzorz". Unlike other vehicle battles, it really lacked any fun, and the ultimate firepower of the failma...landmaster caused defeat for anything but that insane homing instant-kill launcher you get when you're down 2-0 in kills. Your improvements, though, sound great.

Overall, this is one of the greatest ideas for improvement of a series I can think of in recent years.

Just a quick question: what do you plan to do about other vehicles (Landmaster, whatever that underwater ship in SF64 was, the Transformers from SF2)? I'd like to know your thoughts on them and how they would be placed in the next generation of Star Fox games.

Kamekguy @ Mar 24 2008, 09:38 AM wrote: Just a quick question: what do you plan to do about other vehicles (Landmaster, whatever that underwater ship in SF64 was, the Transformers from SF2)? I'd like to know your thoughts on them and how they would be placed in the next generation of Star Fox games.

Do you recall the Sargasso Base level of Assault? The one where you run around shooting the Star Wolf goons, and are able to hop into an Arwing whenever you wanted? I was thinking the missions go kind of like that, but with all vehicles and on almost all missions. The player character runs around the map, and is able to hop into his Arwing and Landmaster. Obviously, this wouldn't work with the Blue Marine, but I guess you could dock and run around on the surface if you wanted to; the majority of the actual mission would take place under water, though, so no running around. Perhaps going underwater for certain levels, as opposed to taking to the skies or blasting them hos with the Landmaster could provide alternative mission objectives.

They should be fully customizable, just like the Arwing and Great Fox; exploration of the cities in between missions could get you side-missions to earn money, and shops in the cities could upgrade it for you. Maybe going through dialogue with Slippy could get him to do some kind of "super" upgrade on your vehicles. The Landmaster could have boost upgrades, weapon upgrades (increased damage output, increased range) or maybe have the ability to have new weapons (missiles, land mines, charged shot). My intention here, though, would be to provide players multiple ways to approach missions; alot of people complain about less focus on the Arwing action, so instead of there being "Landmaster missions", "Arwing missions" and "Blue Marine missions". Also, it'd be kind of cool for the Arwing to be able to blow up, but have the ability to edject out and then finish the mission off in another vehicle.

I'd also kind of like to see the return of the speeder bike thing from Star Fox: Adventures. With the game no longer being set on Dinosaur Planet, there could be missions where you zip at crazy speeds on your speeder bike, blasting enemies with a laster pistol or something. It'd be intense. Maybe some kind of side mini-game where you race them, like the bike races in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic; I loved those.

Really glad you liked my ideas. I'm glad someone seems to appreciate them, and "gets them". It's just kind of a shame that nothing will ever become of them...

I'm not saying much right now, as I have to take in everything I had to bear. For now, I'll say that a Mass Effect-styled Star Fox would be AWESOME and I'd definitely by it. Creating a character = amazing. Wolf Jonno is ready for action!

Jonno @ Mar 24 2008, 11:31 PM wrote: I'm not saying much right now, as I have to take in everything I had to bear. For now, I'll say that a Bioshock-styled Star Fox would be AWESOME and I'd definitely by it. Creating a character = amazing. Wolf Jonno is ready for action!

Maybe I should start posting more now at Brawl Central...

Mass Effect, not BioShock. Two very different games. Although I admit, I've made the same mistake multiple times for some reason; I guess since Mass Effect is made by BioWare, which sounds like BioShock.

Jonno @ Mar 24 2008, 11:31 PM wrote: I'm not saying much right now, as I have to take in everything I had to bear. For now, I'll say that a Bioshock-styled Star Fox would be AWESOME and I'd definitely by it. Creating a character = amazing. Wolf Jonno is ready for action!

Maybe I should start posting more now at Brawl Central...

Mass Effect, not BioShock. Two very different games. Although I admit, I've made the same mistake multiple times for some reason; I guess since Mass Effect is made by BioWare, which sounds like BioShock.

I guess that the mistake is just sort of subconsciously made then?

Also, third person shooters, in my opinion > first person shooters... So, I'm glad that you put the option to play both ways.

Jonno @ Mar 24 2008, 11:31 PM wrote: I'm not saying much right now, as I have to take in everything I had to bear. For now, I'll say that a Bioshock-styled Star Fox would be AWESOME and I'd definitely by it. Creating a character = amazing. Wolf Jonno is ready for action!

Maybe I should start posting more now at Brawl Central...

Mass Effect, not BioShock. Two very different games. Although I admit, I've made the same mistake multiple times for some reason; I guess since Mass Effect is made by BioWare, which sounds like BioShock.

I guess that the mistake is just sort of subconsciously made then?

Also, third person shooters, in my opinion > first person shooters... So, I'm glad that you put the option to play both ways.

I'm a personal fan of FPS's, but Star Fox seems more like a third person shooter to me. However, by having FPS-mode triggered by holding a button, you get the best of both worlds; the atmosphere of third person and the easy aiming of first person!

PrettyPinkPwny @ Mar 25 2008, 05:56 PM wrote: I'm a personal fan of FPS's, but Star Fox seems more like a third person shooter to me. However, by having FPS-mode triggered by holding a button, you get the best of both worlds; the atmosphere of third person and the easy aiming of first person!

FPS's, I admit, does allow easy shooting but, moving? Forget about it! So, FPS for shooting, TPS for moving around sounds like a good idea, as long as it is some easy Landmaster level where you could afford to do that!